Learning to Fly
by ProcurerFaith
Summary: Repost. When the chips are down and there's no-one left to make a stand, Hanatarou has a choice to make - run away and spend his life in shame or make the ultimate sacrifice and die a hero...


_**Disclaimer: **__I do not own Bleach. All Bleach characters are owned by Tite Kubo or their respective creators. I am making no money from this fic. It is a just-for-fun project. The only bit I own is my own characters and the way the words are put together. _he odds looked insurmountable

_**Author's Note; 5**__**th**__** July 2008**__ – So much for putting up all the fics in reverse chronological order :-P Remember, edits may not quite appear as you remember them, as I'm hashing together the beta and the original uploads. I do not plan to come back and amend this work (if I start picking holes in it, I'll never stop XD)_

_**

* * *

**_

Learning to Fly

The odds looked insurmountable. Hanatarou backed up, something in him wanting to protect Rukia, and something else in him wanting to be protected _by_ her. The walkway from the Tower of Penitence was blocked entirely by lieutenants and captains – even Unohana was there, Minatsuki at the ready.

Hanatarou backed up, getting as close to Rukia as he could, at least prepared to protect her with his body if necessary. Rukia's eyes, however, were not on the row of people in front of her, but rather fixed on Ichigo's motionless form.

Ichigo had fallen somewhere in his fourth battle, totally overwhelmed. Zangetsu was broken into scattered shards and Ichigo lay face down on the floor, his conciousness beyond their reach.

Ganju had fallen somewhere in his third battle, and Hanatarou had been left to stare in horror as his friend was soundly defeated and left for dead. Having no weapon of his own with him, it was near impossible for Hanatarou to fight with anything but rocks and debris from the previous battles – but he had done so whenever the chance arose. His zanpakuto was back in his quarters somewhere – to be honest, he'd hardly expected to ever have to use it. Rukia was also unarmed, fresh from her imprisonment..

"It's useless to keep defying us, Hanatarou." Unohana said gently. 'You have no choice but to give up. The ryoka have fallen. Both you and Kuchiki-san will be taken to jail. Her sentence will be carried out, and yours will likely be the same.

"It's over, Hanatarou."

In all of this, Hanatarou had somehow not thought about dying. Certainly it was true that the 11th division, among others, would kill any member of the fourth for fun given the chance, but he'd never truly felt it would come to this.

Even so, he would not have gone back on even one of his decisions over the past couple of days. These people, the people at his feet and back, were the ones who had treated him fairly, like a human being. It was these people who had been kind and supportive – even truly cared about a small, scraggly boy with no prospects.

It was with this thought in mind that his brain crawled back to a memory of the Academy.

"_Your strength is in your kido, Hanatarou. Don't even bother holding a sword; it will always feel wrong to you. Practice your kido." _

_His sensei handed him her own personal book, and smiled._

"_Look through this and practice. It's full of kido that has passed out of use, but you do so well with the curricular kido that you might have an interest in it."_

_Hanatarou hugged the book to his chest and smiled._

"_Thank you, sensei!"_

_His kido sensei had taken a liking to the small, under-developed and downright scrawny boy in her class that got bullied by all the other kids. She allowed him to study in the classroom at recess, just to save him from being bullied by all the other shinigami students out in the grounds. She knew then that he was destined for the fourth division, but she believed that the fourth division was necessary – and that he would be a benefit to them, not a burden. _

"Thank you, sensei." Hanatarou whispered under his breath.

He knew what he had to do.

Suddenly, he _knew_ what he had to do.

He owed Ichigo and Rukia too much to give up now – Ganju, too. They were so close to their goal, and if only he could remember the one kido that had shocked him as a student, he could finally be a 'hero', a person that he himself could be proud of.

Stepping backwards, he grabbed the dagger that had been in Ganju's grasp from the floor. The shinigami closed in, waiting for him to attack one last time.

"Give it up!" yelled Kira. "You've got nothing to gain by doing that!"

Hanatarou shook his head, his eyes haunting.

"You're wrong. I have nothing to _lose _by doing this."

Rukia tore her teary eyes away from Ichigo to watch as Hanatarou, his hands steady with purpose, slashed into his own chest with the dagger. She gasped and fell backwards, finding herself sitting beside Ichigo's damaged form. The boy stumbled forward, almost falling, but managing to rescue himself.

"Hanatarou! What are you doing?!"

There was a series of murmurs and gasps throughout the shinigami. They watched, stunned, as Hanatarou threw the dagger aside and bloodied both of his hands by wiping them across his chest. With a flair that made it almost impossible to see, Hanatarou started to make seals with his hands and called out the names of the symbols. Some were very complex, some archaic, and even one or two of the captains were confused as to what he was doing. Hanatarou's brow was beaded with sweat and his face was pale.

It occurred to Hitsugaya that whatever Hanatarou was doing, it probably ought to be stopped. He leapt forward, running towards the ailing boy, sword ready. Hanatarou raised his eyes and finished a further three symbols before slamming his hands up into the air in front of him, palms outwards. Immediately on doing so, a red shield appeared in front of him, arcing over and encompassing the allies, blocking Hitsugaya's strike entirely. The shinigami were blown back by the force of the spirit energy used in the block, and Hanatarou's shihakusho was taken in a strong breeze, debris clouding the air around him.

"Forbidden kido!" Rukia exclaimed, getting back to her feet. She came to stand beside Hanatarou. His hands were still raised, but his breath was becoming short.

"Not forbidden. Just forgotten" Hanatarou gasped. He gritted his teeth against the pain, and Rukia saw, for the first time, the tiny little spray of blood droplets that gravitated upwards to become part of the shield before them.

"Blood seals… The most powerful of all kido – written out of the shinigami curriculum due to their insane strength, and the sacrifices required to draw them…" Rukia trailed off. She lowered her head.

Gently, she placed her arms around Hanatarou from behind, her hands crossing over his chest. Placing her head on his back, she whispered,

"No, Hanatarou. Please. Enough people have died for me. Don't be one more of them. Let them take me. Let it be over." Hanatarou's head dropped before he replied,

"No."

"_Please_."

"No, Rukia-san." Hanatarou's voice faltered. He took one hand out of the bloody shield and gently removed her hands.

"Besides… No-one has died here today. Yet. Ichigo-san and Ganju-san are still alive – I can still sense their spirit energy, although it's very, very weak. It's not too late."

Rukia immediately turned to where Ichigo lay spread-eagled, and hope once again filled her eyes – along with desperate tears.

Hanatarou removed his other hand from the blood shield and slowly walked across to where Ichigo and Ganju lay. Pain was evident on his face, and it was becoming difficult for him to move.

Meanwhile, the shield was taking all manner of attacks from the outside. The outraged shinigami attacked and attacked, one strike after another deflected by the shield. Unohana alone stood back, watching as the others assaulted the seemingly impenetrable forcefield.

"So that is the strength of your conviction, Hantarou. At last, we see what's inside your heart."

She lowered her head, somehow disappointed that it had come to this.

"You have crafted a shield with your spirit energy, burning it up faster than you can create it. How will you recover?"

However, Hanatarou was paying much less attention to how he himself would recover, and much more attention to how he could help Ganju and Ichigo.

Rukia sat at Ichigo's head, cradling it in her lap when Hanatarou knelt down, extended a thumb and drew a line in blood down Ichigo's forehead.

"The sacrifice will take…take all marked things within the sh-shield… including their bodies…back sixteen hours… So it will be as though they were never injured…And Ichigo-san's zanpakuto never broken…" Hanatarou gasped, drawing a line on Ganju as he had with Ichigo. He smiled gently at Ganju, dark circles under his eyes intensifying as the blood continued to seep from his body.

_Ganju-san… You and Ichigo-san were the first to treat me with any respect. You gave me kindness, even when I was your enemy. Ganju-san, you didn't have to save me from the 11__th__ division, but some instinct in you demanded that you not leave me there to face them. I was a hostage gone wrong – and yet I've never been so glad to be endangered._

_You both treated me like a sibling – something I've never had before. You saw me as a human being, not just a pack-horse. _

_I can't thank you enough for that._

_And then, on top of that, you came here to save Rukia-san. Her sentence was never fair, and you planned to free her from it._

_What I do now is all I can do for you. It will be all I ever do._ Hanatatou thought to himself.

He reached out for Rukia's forehead, but she shied back.

"Don't do this, Hanatarou…" she begged once more. "You know the penalty…You know the price you must pay…"

"And that's why…I can do it…because I know that cost…" Hanatarou replied, pushing forward once again. This time, Rukia grabbed the boy's wrist. He was weak from blood loss, and couldn't bring himself to fight her.

"You don't need to help me. You could have run away, could have never been part of this. Why are you helping me?" she asked, angry at the thought of another death on her conscience.

"If you're not marked… when you start moving the shield… the shield will reject you, Rukia-san. We…we barely have time as it is…" Hanatarou responded, changing the subject entirely. Finding new strength in urgency, he snapped his arm free of Rukia's grasp and grabbed her by the back of the head, pulling her forward and marking her with his thumb, as he had the others. Rukia put her fingers to her forehead to touch the mark gently. She gazed blankly at the smattering of blood left on her fingers.

Hanatarou dragged himself to his feet. He was white and his face was slathed in sweat. He clenched his teeth as his sight turned hazy. If he didn't make it back to the shield, he'd fail in his efforts…

"You…You'll have sixteen minutes before the sh-shield degrades. You, Ichigo-san and Ganju-san will only have that long to escape… Th-the shield…" Hanatarou faltered. His eyes closed as evidence of his pain and he dropped to one knee. Rukia immediately stood and ran to him, dragging him up under the arms.

"Hanatarou, please… It's not too late… Reconsider this, _please_…" she begged, still just managing to hold him upright.

"It _is_ too late. Rukia-san… P-please help me to the sh-shield…" Hanatarou stuttered. "Don't make this…be in vain…"

Rukia spent a moment fighting with her inner self. She knew that Hanatarou planned to die in helping them to escape, and she didn't want to help him do that. However, he had already gone too far with the blood seal kido to come back, and to stop him now meant wasting his all-encompassing sacrifice.

She swallowed back her tears and supported him, taking him back to the wall of the shield. Hanatarou smiled gratefully at her, barely able to speak. His face conveyed the strength of his thanks. Rukia glanced away, ashamed of the weakness of her tears in the face of such sacrifice.

"The shield will last sixteen minutes… In that time, you should…should be able to get…at least far away…enough to hide… Th-the shield… the shield will repel an-anyone who hasn't been marked… You could just…walk through…walk through the captains…

"But I sug-gest running…" Hanatarou forced, smiling at this last part.

"How can you be so calm…?" Rukia asked.

"B-because I know… I know that…at last, I'll…be able to say…I did something…for you…" Hanatarou tipped his head back to indicate the two prone boys on the ground. "and them…"

Rukia's barely hidden tears spilled forth, spattering into Hanatarou's hair.

She let him go reluctantly as he dragged himself forward on his knees, sitting back on them finally and placing his hands to his chest once more. Bloodied again, he paused as he raised his palms to the shield.

"Whatever happens…don't…take me with you… I'll just be…a burden…" he whispered.

With this, he made four more seals, four times over, and slammed his hands out into the blood shield.

All Hell broke loose. The spirit power Hanatarou had previously been haemorrhaging quadrupled, eclipsing his previous efforts. The captains closest to the shield were blown off their feet. Skilled as they were, they managed to regain footing quickly, but not soon enough to do anything more than watch as the blood shield roiled and rumbled like a thundercloud.

"He can't keep that up… He'll kill himself." Hitsugaya said under his breath.

"Yes." Replied Unohana, who moved to the tenth division captain's side. "That is what he intends to do."

_I must…keep my mind…_

_I must keep my strength until the very last minute…_

_I must take Ichigo-san as inspiration, and mimic his will to live…_

_I must…_

_I must live long enough to bring them back…_

_Ichigo-san… Ganju-san…_

_You would never stop fighting…_

_I can't give in…_

_I can't…_

_I _won't_…_

Hanatarou fought against the pain that encompassed him, fought against the blood-red blindness of his eyes, against the ringing in his ears. He knew that he needed every drop of strength to carry this through to the end. He had to stay conscious, he had to defy his own expectations of himself. Deep inside himself, he could feel something breaking -something irrepairable, irreplaceable.

Ichigo's eyes flicked open. He blinked a few times, seeing red at the corner of his vision. Slowly, he forced himself up to his elbows and spat out a mouthful of dust and debris.

"Am I dead?" he asked, falling back on his rump and looking at his hands. He didn't get a chance to look at them for long, because suddenly Rukia was in his arms, giving him a heartfelt hug.

"Ichigo!" She drew back immediately, embarrassed by her outburst.

"Oi…" growled Ganju, holding his head as he too shifted to a sitting position. "What's Hana doing?"

Rukia looked mournfully across to where Hanatarou sat on his knees, desperately pouring the last of his strength into the wall of protection which would be his last gift to his friends. Rukia stood and watched Hanatarou for a moment before answering Ganju.

"Making…the ultimate sacrifice…" she whispered. She turned to the two boys, who looked confused.

"He's using blood seal kido to sacrifice his spirit energy. To take both of your bodies back sixteen hours, to a state where they were uninjured. And to help us escape from the captains and lieutenants with this shield."

Ichigo suddenly leapt up, his body now in a fit state to do so.

"Sacrifice? Not…_that _sacrifice, right?"

"It will cost him all of his spirit energy." Rukia glanced down as she spoke. Ganju gasped.

"The stupid little bastard'll kill himself!"

Hanatarou's will finally broke. Somewhere on the edge of his hearing, he'd heard the voices of Ichigo and Ganju, and that was enough. He let go of his connection, and immediately lifelessness swooped in like spilled ink, staining his consciousness black.

The boy crumpled to the ground. His hands were the last to fall, withdrawing from the shield in a graceful swan song.

"Hanatarou!" Rukia and Ichigo cried in unison and ran towards the still form of their friend. Ganju pushed past them in an effort to get there first, immediately sweeping the boy into his arms.

"Hana!" he yelled, and looked directly into the face of the smaller boy. His breath caught in his throat.

There was no movement at all from the boy in his arms. He was still warm, but no expression graced his face. His lips, like his eyelids, were slightly parted but ther was no breath to brush them. Ganju froze as Ichigo put a hand on his shoulder.

"How is he?" asked Ichigo, worry drawn into his face.

"We need to get going." Ganju's answer was cold as he pulled his shoulder from Ichigo's grip and clutched Hanatarou to himself, lifting him into the air. He gently positioned him over his shoulder. Ichigo continued to ask the same question time and time again, to the point where his fists clenched at his sides and his voice shook. Ganju continually refused to answer.

"Tell me, Goddammit! Say it!" screamed Ichigo, his eyes fixed on Ganju's back, his hand on the hilt of his sword. Rukia put her hand on his and said,

"We're not able to do anything for him anymore, Ichigo! All we can do is use his sacrifice to out best ability. The shield will only last sixteen minutes." She turned to Ganju.

"He didn't want us to take him, Ganju."

"Screw that." Ganju snorted. 'I'm sure as hell not leaving him here.

"And if I can, I'm taking out some of these sons of bitches on the way." He snarled. He pounded on the shield with his free hand and screamed,

"You hear that, you bastards! I'll kill ya! I swear to God I'll break ya for this!"

He turned to Rukia, agony and fury on his face.

"I wanna get out of this thing, how do I get out?"

"You can't, Ganju! Hanatarou put it there to keep us safe." Rukia responded, lifting a placating hand.

"The God-damn stupid little brat, I don't care! I wanna get out there and break something! I swear to God I'm gonna break something!" Ganju screamed, turning back to the shield and kicking it vehemently.

"Ganju…" Ichigo's voice was low. Ganju kept kicking at the shield, screaming and yelling for the shinigami to come for him, to take him on right now, to show him what they were made of.

"_Ganju_!!" Ichigo's voice rang through the shield. Ganju stopped for a moment, his breathing heavy. Ichigo's fists were clenched tightly at his side and he was shaking as he looked up at Ganju's back.

"Don't waste Hanatarou's sacrifice."

There was silence for a moment. Ganju's hand went to his face, in what looked suspiciously like an attempt to wipe away tears.

"Don't waste what he did for us." Ichigo whispered.

After a moment's pause, Rukia stepped forward and placed her hand on Ichigo's arm.

"We need to go" she said.

"How do we move this thing?" Ichigo asked, moving to stand beside Ganju. He glanced at the bigger man and saw that his face was guarded. He turned from Ichigo a little more as he noticed him looking.

"You wanna keep those eyes, you bastard?" he asked. Ichigo bristled, but said nothing. The most important thing was to get away, to see if there was anything, _anything_ at all they could do for Hanatarou.

Rukia ran to Ichigo's side and said,

"If we all put our hands in the shield and walk, it should move with us. Ganju, you might need both hands."

"That means putting Hana down. Screw that in the ear." Ganju grunted in response.

"Ganju!-" Ichigo began, but the bigger man turned to him, imposingly.

"If I can't do it with one hand, then it ain't getting done, ya hear me?!" His right hand clenched around Hanatarou's waist unconsciously. The only way he would leave Hanatarou was over his own dead body, that much was clear.

"Fine. Then you'd better push real hard with that one hand." Ichigo snapped, and gave a massive heave.

As it turned out, it wasn't as hard to push the shield as they'd expected it to be. With Rukia and Ichigo pushing, it pretty much moved at a near-run, but as Hanatarou had suggested, a full-paced run was going to be better. Therefore, Ganju had the final control of speed.

The shield was all-encompassing, and though the captains tried everything they could to get into it and under it, nothing they tried proved any use. It was the embodiment of the ultimate scarifice, and akin to a contract with the devil himself. It was unbreakable.

Ganju tried in vain to steer the orb into random shinigami, hoping to push them off the bridge in their escape to the main buildings.

No-one inside the shield had the heart to stop him.

They were trailed by the shinigami mercilessly. Even as their breath started to wane, even as they drifted down to ground level, the captains were only a step or two behind them. They were, after all, the elite of the elite – tracking the intruders in a huge red ball wasn't even testing for them.

Ganju was pouring sweat. Running with his own weight was bad enough, but running with Hanatarou made the job even harder. However, he had no intention of leaving the broken shinigami behind. As they ran, his foot caught on the edge of a floor tile and he nearly cannoned into the back of Ichigo. Glancing down, he yelled,

"Stop! Stop, now!"

"No time to-"

"Stop I said! This is a movable floor tile!!" Ganju interrupted Ichigo, who stopped upon hearing this. He turned, and saw the approaching shinigami through the top of the shield.

"We can go down and come up somewhere else!" Ganju yelled.

One more second and Ichigo replied, nodding once.

"Okay, do it."

Rukia reached down to the floor tile, dragging it up and over. Ichigo pushed her down first, then indicated for Ganju to go down, forcing him to surrender Hanatarou because both of them couldn't go down at the same time. As he lowered the lightweight through the hole in the ground, he desperately tried to reject the thought that Hanatarou was dead.

There.

He'd said it.

Hanatarou was dead.

Suddenly, his legs felt weak, and it was all he could do to keep standing.

Hanatarou was dead.

He'd died saving their asses.

And unless Ichigo could make his feet move and get down this hole, his sacrifice would still be for nothing.

Forcing back his tears of anger and regret, Ichigo climbed down into the hole, the last of the shield disappearing with him as he pulled the covering tile back over.

Throughout their ordeal, they had been hidden from the outside world. The shinigami were blind to what was happening inside the shield, but the three marked persons within could see out perfectly well, although the world was tinged with red.

To all the shinigami but one, they had simply disappeared into thin air.

They stopped for a moment, confused.

"They're in the sewers." Unohana said quietly.

Within four minutes of arriving within the sewers, the shield cracked and then dissipated; it's sixteen minutes were over, the last living remnant of Hanatarou gone with it.

They walked for a while, taking every twist and turn that they could. They were trying to shake their pursuers completely, the only way they knew how.

The silence was heavy. None of them could bring themselves to speak, still shell-shocked by the events of that afternoon.

After passing many exits, they eventually decided to try one. Ichigo walked up the ladder dubiously and lifted the floor tile just the tiniest bit. He seemed to be looking out into some kind of large storeroom. It looked like it was for stationary – ink brushes, paper, ink stones and sticks of ink were everywhere. Wherever they were, it had been a while since anyone had been there. There was a layer of dust over everything.

Listening carefully, Ichigo determined that there was nobody in or nearby the room, and cautiously climbed out of the hole in the ground. Once more, he took Hanatarou's body from Ganju and the bigger man climbed through the hole, followed finally by Rukia. Ganju took back Hanatarou instantly, even though his shoulder had begun to ache desperately. He wasn't going to let the little shinigami go without a struggle.

"Well…It's not safe here," Ichigo whispered. "If they're smart enough to figure out that we escaped through the sewers, pretty soon they're going to have somebody at every sewer exit. We need to move as far away from here as we can." There was a nod in response from Rukia and a glance from Ganju.

Nervously, Ichigo opened the door to thestreet outside and after checking in both directions for enemies – of which mercifully there were none – he walked somberly into the rapidly falling dusk. Turning, he nodded to Ganju and Rukia to follow him. Together, they made their way speedily to anywhere else that looked as though it might be a good hiding place – somewhere disused and prefereably off the beaten track.

It took a while, and a good deal of mercy, to find somewhere without being caught on the way.

Eventually, Ichigo led his small and terribly morose group to another storeroom – this one seemed to be mostly used as a shihakusho uniform storage facility. It was a fairly good assumption that it wasn't visited every day, and at least this way it would afford them a little time to regroup.

Truth was, they really needed more than just a little time.

There was a tailor's bench at the back of the room. Ganju mercillessly swept off all that was on it and lowered Hanatarou down onto it's surface gently, careful to gather the boy up and lay him out straight.

Even further behind the bench, was a well-concealed door that lead to a much smaller room used to keep thread and fabric rolls. Ichigo grimly thought to himself that spare uniforms must have to come from somewhere. Maybe Ishida would be able to get a job here when this was all over.

He realised that he hadn't heard anything from Ishida and Orihime, and a pang of worry struck him instantly. Closing his eyes, his knees felt weak.

He had already failed one friend.

He had failed Hanatarou.

It's not as though he'd made ridiculous promises to protect him, or as though he'd even known him a long time. It was instinct for Ichigo to want to protect things smaller and weaker than himself. Being a big brother made you that way. You were constantly told by your parents that you needed to protectthe little ones, look after them, defend them. It was only a mater of time before it became instinctive.

However - once you had reached that point, and once you had failed to protect someone…the pain was also instinctive.

His name meant 'one who protects' right? '_One who protects_'… Then why, _how_, had he come to fail Hanatarou the same way he had failed his mother? Why had Hanatarou died doing the same thing as she had – _saving his ass_? Ichigo closed the door to the fabric cupboard behind himself and stood in the dark for a moment. He felt more comfortable with his tears if there was no-one else to see them. He wanted to be angry – his normal response to pain – but somehow, all of a sudden, he couldn't summon the energy.

Rukia dug around in a corner of the main storeroom and turned up a half-burned candle, managing to light it with a 'trick' kido. Holding it in her hand, she searched for a suitable holder and finally found one.

Sadly, she approached Hanatarou, and placed the candle on an empty shelf above his head. She took a deep breath and looked at the boy's face.

He was actually smiling.

Rukia closed her eyes and murmured something under her breath. Opening them again, slightly blurred with tears she was used to controlling, she reached out for Hanatarou's obi. Ganju's hand suddenly snapped out and grabbed her wrist.

"What are you doing?" he asked, gruffly.

"He needs to be cleaned. I thought-"

"No!" Ganju practically threw her from his grasp. Rukia rubbed her wrist, looking at Ganju angrily.

"Why not?"

"He wouldn't want some _girl_ to touch him. Especially not you!" Ganju yelled, breaking Ichigo's behind-closed-doors reverie immediately. He slid the door open to see Rukia and Ganju facing off.

"What is _wrong_ with you ? Can't you show him any respect at all?" Ichigo raised his voice angrily, looking directly at Ganju. Ganju's face did not soften.

"You want to know about _respect_? He got involved in all this because of _her_, he died because of _her_, and _she_ wants to clean him!" Ganju pointed an accusing finger at Rukia, who stood her ground.

"You bastard… Can't you even recognise what he did? What he gave up, and _who_ he gave it up for? Or are you so blind that you can't see? Or maybe you just don't _want_ to see." Ichogo snarled. "He gave up his life for _us_! For _all_ of us! Every one of us in this room benefited from his sacrifice, you and I more than Rukia! Or are you so stupid that you can't tell that?"

"Don't call me stupid, you damn bastard… I know very well that we're to blame for Hana laying there on that table like that – all white and dead! I know that you and I are more to blame than anyone – we took him as a hostage after all, right? We didn't know he was going to end up fucking _helping_ us!" Ganju shouted, his fury as clear on his face as his pain and guilt.

"If you, with all your fucking parading and shit, had actually been as strong as you kept _fucking_ saying, Hana wouldn't be dead, and we wouldn't be here!" Ganju's second burst of words cut deep into Ichigo's heart. Sure, it wasn't as though he didn't already feel bad enough, but to have Ganju come right out and _blame_ him? It was painful, it was dirty and wrong, it was…

Unforgivable.

"Say that again" Ichigo's voice was low and his hand went to the hilt of his sword. Zangetsu's fabric sheath slipped away, leaving the dark blade glinting in the subtle candlelight.

Ganju's hand went to his own sword's hilt and pulled it slightly from it's scabbard.

"You couldn't protect him… He died saving your ass-"

"-_Our_ asses-" Ichigo replied through gritted teeth

"And now you want to let this girl, the Kuchiki _bitch_ who killed Aniki, even _touch_ him? Over my _dead body_, you bastard."

"If that's what you want…" Ichigo growled.

Somewhere in Ganju's brain there was a little voice that begged him not to take his current course of action, that said he wasn't _really_ angry at Ichigo but sad over Hanatarou, that this was bad and wrong. But some lower brain fuction, some base instinct had taken over.

Ganju hadn't been able to protect Hanatarou when he had taken the decision to sacrifice his own life so that others could live – and it hurt Ganju like an infected wound. He hadn't been conscious to talk Hanatarou out of his decision – hell, if he'd been conscious, maybe Hana wouldn't have even _had_ to make it. He had somehow become attatched to the little shinigami in a way he couldn't have imagined, and having him die like this was like an agonising fire in his blood.

Ganju hated shinigami. He would proclaim that to the world. But, to Ganju, it was as if Hanatarou wasn't a real shinigami. Ganju hadn't even troubled himself to wonder why he was concerned over the boy, or why he got as attatched as he did so quickly.

"Unforgivable, you bastard… It's _unforgivable_…" Ichigo growled and pulled his sword from his back. Ganju pulled his sword fully from the sheath, but in a second Rukia was between them, her body directly at the tip of both swords.

"Stop it! _Both_ of you!" she yelled. "Neither of you have any respect at all!" Her words rang in the air as the two swordsmen froze. Rukia continued, her voice shaking with anger.

"Will you repay Hanatarou's sacrifice by killing each other? Will you throw away what he did over a disagreement over whose _fault_ it was!? As much as it pains me to say it, Hanatarou excersised his own free will – nobody could have stopped him, he was too determined! And yet here you both are, fighting with swords over whose _fault _it was!?

"Hanatarou would be ashamed of you!"

She lowered her hands, breathing heavily. Both Ichigo and Ganju lowered their swords, letting them hang loosely in their grip.

"Don't make his sacrifice worthless. He shouldn't have had to make it, but he did, so all we can do is protect the belief in us that he had. Belief so strong that he was willing to give up his life for it.

"Don't put him to shame. Don't put yourselves to shame. Hanatarou valued you as his friends or he would never have done such a thing so willingly.

"He invested his love in you – don't either of you see? You must – _we_ must – carry on living with his blessing."

Ichigo looked away. His eyes were full of tears. As he glanced back to Ganju, he noticed that he too had looked away in shame, unable to meet Rukia's eyes. He was shaking.

"You need water to wash him with. I'll go get it." Ichigo mumbled, making his way to the door cautiously and then drifting out into the darkness to find a water pump.

Ganju dropped his sword and sank to his knees, covering his face with his arms. Rukia watched for a moment, her own tears escaping. Without a word, she moved to the back of the room where Hanatarou lay and continued to undress him.

In a show of grace, she overlooked Ganju's muted sobs as she nobly undressed Hanatarou down to his white juban. When she was done, she walked over to Ganju and cautiously put a hand on his shoulder.

"You are right." She said gently. "Hanatarou would not have wanted me to see him unclothed. He was too shy. I think he would feel more comfortable if you did it."

"I don't deserve to" Ganju sniffed. Rukia smiled sorrowfully.

"Yes you do. We all have lost a friend here today. You are no different.

"We are unified in our pain."

Ganju nodded, still too ashamed to show Rukia – or Hanatarou – his face.

Ichigo re-entered, a stolen bowl of water in his hands. Rukia asked no questions as she gently took it from him and walked back to Hanatarou's side. Ichigo looked at Ganju, who was still on the floor, but said nothing.

Rukia pulled out a pristine white juban from a pile on a shelf and tore a handsome chunk from it. She put it into the bowl, squeezing water through it to soak it totally. With that, she took Ichigo's arm and led him back into the storage cupboard.

She knew that Ganju needed time away from the others to do the job properly. It wasn't as though they could just leave the building to get out of the way – they had to be sensible.

The cupboard was cramped with the two of them in it, in the dark. Rukia reached up and felt about for a ream of fabric. Finally choosing one that felt quite soft, she dragged it off the shelf and dropped it onto the floor – narrowly missing Ichigo's toes.

"I need those." he muttered. Rukia sat down on one end of the ream and suggested that Ichigo sit down on the other end.

He obliged, seeing as sitting in the dark was preferable to standing in the dark anyway.

"You know… I can't see your tears in the dark…" Rukia said quietly after a while, tears filling her eyes. "And you can't see mine."

"Yeah." Ichigo replied, through the tears that laced his own face.

Slowly, Ganju got to his feet. He approached Hanatarou cautiously, as if he expected something untoward to happen - but Hantarou continued to lay serenely on his makeshift mortuary tablet; unmoving and broken.

As Ganju reached him, he looked down at Hanatarou's face and saw the smile, delicate and graceful.

"How can you smile like that? Are you laughing at our pain, you bastard?

"Or is this one of your 'I don't care about myself, as long as you're all okay' moments?

"Yeah. That's it, isn't it?" Ganju asked gently, untying first the date-jime and then the koshi-himo that kept Hanatarou's juban closed.

It was an unpleasant business. Some narky voice in the back of Ganju's mind said that the _real_ reason Rukia hadn't wanted to bathe Hanatarou was because he was so bloodsoaked – this was never more evident than when Ganju reached the final layer of underwear, awash with crimson. He winced slightly at the gash in the boy's chest; Rukia hadn't had the heart to tell Ganju the terrible truth, that Hanatarou had given himself that wound with his own blade.

Ganju would not let Hanatarou go on to whatever his next life would be sullied with the blood of this one; for his part, Ganju felt no shame in undressing his friend. He was doing something necessary, something time-honoured, something cleansing. For both the body in front of him, and for himself.

Having unclothed Hanatarou, Ganju put his big hands in the bowl of water and picked up the cloth within. Squeezing the water through, he folded it into as close to a padded square as he could get, and gently wiped Hanatarou's face with it.

Gradually, he worked his way down Hanatarou's body, always talking softly; carefully, he avoided the bloodiest areas and saved them for last, to keep the water as clean as he could for as long as he could.

"Thanks…

"Thank you.

"I guess 'thanks' doesn't really do it justice. You did something worth more than just 'thanks'. Worth a lot more. More even than 'thank you' can cover, but I don't know any words that can do it.

"If you hadn't done what you did, we'd all be dead. This mission would be over, and not in a good way.

"As it happens, Hana, I'm doing some wishing that I _was_ dead right now, but I'm hoping it'll pass.

"I owe you more than that.

"And I'm sorry about that shit with Ichigo earlier. I'll sort it out with him later."

Gently, he uncurled Hanatarou's fingers and wiped his bloody palms with the cloth, making sure to rinse it well in between wipes.

"I feel like I let you down.

"I feel like _we _let you down.

"That's why I was so damn mad at Ichigo – but it wasn't any more his fault than mine.

"It wasn't even that Kuchiki girl's fault. Not really."

Ganju wiped the salt of his tears into his shoulder, without raising a hand to his face.

"I've never lost a friend before. It's a new one to add to my list. Mother, father, brother…but not friend. It's funny; no matter how you look at it, we'd never have been friends in any kind of normal circumstances. I hate shinigami; you're a shinigami. We'd have clashed and I'd have laughed at you. Hell, I'd probably have even bullied you.

"I'm sorry, but I think that's fucking funny." Ganju laughed hollowly, bitterly; he moved on to Hanatarou's wounded chest. He took a deep breath, and nearly choked on it.

"And now, I'm crying over you like some kind of sissy boy, and it's pissing me off, but I just can't help it…" Ganju wept, unable now to even see the chest he was washing.

Refusing to continue with water so red, he walked to the door, pulled it open and walked around to the back of the building, throwing the despoiled water into a dirt pile.

A that moment, he didn't really care if the shinigami found him or not – he knew he'd give them a damn good fight to pay Hanatarou back for his sacrifice. Mercifully, he wasn't required to do so. Night had fallen in earnest, and his way was lit with little more than stars this far from the main buildings. He made his way to the nearest water pump, rinsed the bowl and refilled it, making his sorry way back to the group's hiding place.

When he got back to Hanatarou, he continued his one-way conversation as though it had never stopped.

"I bet you've never done anything in your life that required you to think of yourself first.

"Is that something else they teach you in shitty fourth division? Throw your life away for a couple of bastards you've only known a day or so? Who, if it wasn't mentioned before, _did_ try to kidnap you and take you as a hostage?

"You poor bastard. I felt so bad for you when those other shitters said they didn't care what happened to you. Not liking someone you don't know is bad enough, but just letting them die because you don't like the group they belong to? What kind of twisted-up shit is that?

"It's not like they've never been seen to by the fourth, right?

"At some point, anyway. The bastards'd be screaming for you soon enough if they needed you, right?

"I thought that was really shitty of them. And you-

"Sometimes, you'd annoy me even more than they did.

"You always talked so down on yourself, never realising that you were one hell of a person with some pretty shit-hot abilities - but fuck-all confidence in himself. But I bet being in the fourth division doesn't do much for that. How can you be confident when people are telling you you're shit all the time?

"I tell you, these shinigami bastards, one day they're going to get what's coming to them-

"Present company accepted.

"And Ichigo too, I guess. Although he's not really a shinigami…sort of. Oh, shit, I dunno… Whatever, anyway."

Ganju stood back a moment and observed his handiwork. He nodded once, sighing, as if to confirm that this was the best he could do with a bad job. Moving to one of the shelves and sticking his hand into a pile of white linens, he said,

"They've only got white yukata – but I suppose you don't care all that much, huh?" Drawing one out of the pile, he shook it out and gave it a cursory glance.

"Probably a bit big for you, but then most stuff probably is. It's not like you ever had much bulk to fit anything, is it?" He returned to Hanatarou's side and lifted his body gently, slipping him into the pristine new yukata. As he withdrew his hand from around his neck though, he noticed that it was smeared with blood – as the once immaculate yukata now was.

"Shit, I forgot your hair-" Ganju began, reaching out for the bowl of water but actually landing his hand straight into it. It tipped, emptying the reddened water across Hanatarou's legs and sending the wooden bowl itself crashing to the floor.

The bloody water seeped into the now ruined yukata, staining it once more and giving the eerie effect of making it look like Hanatarou was once again bleeding.

Ganju dropped to his knees, swore loudly and covered his face with his hands.

"Shit, shit, _shit_! I can't even do _this_ for you properly!" He reached out and pulled on the ruined yukata, burying his face in it as he wept.

Ichigo immediately burst from the back room to see what was going on, barely taking a moment to wipe his face on his sleeve.

"Ganju! What's…" his voice trailed away at the sight that met his eyes. On the floor before him sat Ganju, on his knees, crying heavily into a yukata that wrapped Hanatarou only partially now. On the floor was the bowl, and across the workbench ran the spilled remnants of the bloody water, dribbling slowly to the wooden floorboards.

Walking forward, Ichigo didn't say a word – not in anger, sadness, or comfort. Only silence pervaded the room, interspersed by the last trickles of the sullied water. Ganju did not acknowledge his presence, lost in his shameless crying. Bending down, Ichigo picked up the bowl from the floor and walked towards the door.

Rukia had heard the crashing, heard the sobbing – and felt Ichigo's tangible silence. She, with her face tearstained, chose to stay where she was in the dark cupboard.

Ichigo returned quickly, the bowl once more full of water – but there was no luck in this third try. Indeed, Ichigo felt as though all luck had left them. He knew he had been riding too close to the edge but had expected the final sacrifice, if necessary, to be his own - not Hanatarou's.

He felt personally responsible for the boy's death. First, he and Ganju had kidnapped him, then exposed him to terrors he very likely hadn't experienced before, by their mere presence had encouraged him to go against his ilk…

Once thing was certain. Hanatarou wouldn't be lying dead in front of them if they had not brought him into this circus against his will.

Ganju was silent now, but still holding the yukata as though it were something precious. Gently, Ichigo put the water down on the workbench and began to undress Hanatarou again. Something about this act seemed indecent – but Ichigo knew it wasn't as though Hanatarou could feel shame anymore. Somehow, his own embarrassment was curbed by this thought, too.

"You should get a fresh yukata." Ichigo said to Ganju softly. Ganju didn't respond at first, but after a moment, he stood and rifled in the linen pile again.

Tearing a small, clean portion off the old yukata, Ichigo dabbed it into the water and cleaned the boy before him of all remnants of the previous spillage. His emotions were blank at this – it was a necessary evil, one he could grieve over later. He hadn't understood at first the insistence of Ganju completing the bathing by himself – then he had realised that he felt it was his responsibility. Helping him complete the task made Ichigo understand this much more clearly.

"I missed his hair…" Ganju said quietly as Ichigo made to take the water away. "That's what made it all go wrong." Ichigo nodded and handed Ganju the bowl. He took it gently, putting it down before him and soaking the piece of cloth once more.

With careful hands, Ganju vigilantly wiped the cloth through Hantarou's hair and across the back of his neck, cleaning away all traces of the blood that had caused him such upset.

Ichigo took the bowl when Ganju handed it to him, took it outside and disposed of the water. When he returned, Ganju was shaking out the second yukata.

"We work better as a team, don't we?" Ganju said quietly. Ichigo nodded, and lifted Hanatarou carefully as Ganju wrapped him in the yukata.

"I'm sorry…About before…" Ganju said, taking a deep breath.

"We were both assholes." Ichigo said dismissively, tying the obi gently but firmly around Hanatarou's tiny waist.

"Yeah, but…it was my asshole doing the talking…" Ganju said, delicately smoothing down Hanatarou's hair as Ichigo lowered him back to the workbench.

"Doesn't it always?" Ichigo afforded Ganju a wry smile. Ganju narrowed his eyes, but made a dismissive noise.

"He deserved more than that." Ganju said, standing back.

"We can't give him what he deserves. And he gave us much more than _we_ ever did." Ichigo said, and then fell silent.

"We'll spend the night here. It's late. In the morning we're gone.

"And we'll leave Hanatarou here." Ichigo said finally, and trepsed back to the cupboard to see how Rukia was doing.

Ganju stood for a long time, gazing at Hanatarou's body.

_Hana… You stupid bastard…_

_How could you do that?_

_How could you sacrifice your most precious thing for us? You had so much to offer, so much to give. So much that you never realised that in just existing and doing your job, you were ensuring that people lived, that they survived terrible injuries, that they regained their health – a gift so great that we couldn't have lived without it, and in the end couldn't give you back anything worth a half as much. _

_You never valued yourself half as much as others valued you._

_Then Kami-sama take you, and let him show you everything you were worth._

_Maybe with the grace of God you'll finally understand._

"It was here, Kuchiki Taicho! Where we found the blood this morning!" A shinigami exclaimed stiffly, standing aside so that Kuchiki Taicho could enter the small building. He was closely followed by Unohana Taicho. Behind them, was a crowd of shinigami, all standing to attention, aware that the enemy could be within these walls, that they could have something, anything planned – after all, they had escaped all thirteen captains yesterday – gloves off, now anything was possible.

Byakuya's cold eyes scanned the room as he slung the door open. He was unmoved by the body on the workbench at the back of the room – something Unohana could not claim. She lowered her head immediately, her hand on her chest.

"Search the back room." Byakuya said quietly, noticing immediately the door that lead off into the cupboard space. Two shinigami raced forwards, clattering towards the back of the room and throwing the door open. There was nothing inside, and they turned to look at Byakuya for confirmation. He took a small breath and said,

"They're not here. But they _were_." With that he turned, not even needing to command his shinigami; they immediately turned to follow him out of the door.

Behind Unohana, some of her shinigami were peering around the door, trying to get a look at what was inside. One of them gasped, seeing and recognising the body at the back of the room. Unohana took a deep breath and said, gently.

"I want you all to go back to the main building."

"But, Unohana Taicho, what about you?" The shinigami nearest to her said, her eyes briming at the sight in the room.

"It'll be fine. The ryoka are gone from here. There's no-one to hurt me. Go on." She said gently, and shooed her charges out of the door, closing it behind them.

Slowly, she approached the body on the workbench. His face was paler now even than before, and his eyes wore terribly dark circles. When she finally stood before Hanatarou, she clutched her hands together on her chin and sighed.

"Hanatarou… What tradgedy it is that it's come to this…" Reaching out with a hand she pressed her palm to his forehead. Gently, she stroked his face as she said,

"They've done a wonderful job of cleaning you. You're perfect." As she glanced down the length of his body, she saw that something had been pressed into his hands.

There was little else in the storeroom but cloth, but somehow Ganju had managed to get hold of paper and ink. A thought suddenly occured to Unohana – there was a stationary store somewhere nearby with a sewer doorway in it. They had probably got here from coming up at that point. She reached down and carefully removed the paper from beneath Hanatarou's palms. Opening it carefully, she read;

'_To whom this may concern;_

_We've cleaned Hana as well as we could. It was hard, so we might have missed a few spots – sorry._

_We wanted to tell you that it's not Hana's fault. We're to blame for everything he did. We just took him along for the ride. Those of you who know him will know that his 'no' wasn't very forceful, and we ignored it. You could say we bullied him into it. When he did that kido yesterday, he did something he wasn't used to doing – he defied authority. But he also did something he _was_ used to doing –fixing people who needed it. Okay, so he didn't normally do it that way, but he did do it all the time. After all, that's what you bastards taught him to do, right? He was expendable – a piece of shit by your standards. _

_Everything he did that went against your rules was instigated by us; we kidnapped him, he was with us against his will, we made him do the bad stuff._

_Because of that, we want him to be remembered not as a criminal, but as someone who died doing what he believed was right – and that's all any of us can do, right? He believed that he had to fix people, but he also believed that this was something below standard, something that he should let the other bastards pick on him for._

_We think he was special, and we go on our knees before you – bury him properly, with any honors he'd have been allowed before he met us. It's our fault he's dead, and no-one feels worse about that than we do. This is all we can ask, and we beg you to do what's right by him._

_What he'd have done for anyone else.'_

Unohana took a deep breath and looked at the body of Squad Leader of Rescue Team Fourteen and seventh ranked within the fourth division, Yamada Hanatarou. She sighed.

"I'll try, ryoka. I'll try."

_-fini-_

* * *

_Thank you for reading my fic! I hope I was able to entertain you a little bit :)_


End file.
